Redfern Legal Centre welcomes the report on the 2024 New South Wales Drug Summit’s recommendation to halt the use of drug detection dogs and strip searches at festivals during the current trial of drug-checking services.
The report advocates for this policy to potentially extend to all music festivals.
Sam Lee, Supervising Solicitor at Redfern Legal Centre, says:
"To ensure community safety, strip searches and drug detection dogs should be banned permanently.
We need legislative change to make it clear that strip searches should never be conducted based on suspicion of minor drug possession—not just at music festivals or during the drug testing trial, but permanently.
Evidence shows that these humiliating and intimidating practices do not make festivals safer; in fact, they often encourage risky behaviors, such as preloading."
